Driver in fatal motorcyle crash on trial

Melissa Anne Sharpe leaves the Superior Court, Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, in Windsor, Ont. She is accused of failure to remain at a scene of an accident in Lakeshore that claimed the life of a motorcyclist. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Melissa Anne Sharpe hit a motorcycle at the intersection of County Road 46 and Rochester Townline, so severely injuring the two riders that one died and one is permanently disabled.

That’s about all that can be agreed upon after the first day of testimony in Sharpe’s criminal negligence and dangerous driving trial Monday in Superior Court.

Other motorists who saw the crash May 3, 2009. gave conflicting testimony about most details, including the colour of car Sharpe was driving. One insisted there was a flashing light above a stop sign he said she ran, while photos taken by police show there was none.

One of the witnesses said Sharpe fled the scene and he summoned another driver to follow her. The other driver at first testified he used his car to block her path, but then conceded she may have already been stopped when he caught up with her a short distance away.

Call records show Sharpe was on the phone to 911 two minutes after the crash occurred.

Sharpe, 25, and pregnant, is charged with criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing the death of Gregory Hardy and criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing bodily harm to Hardy’s wife.

Hardy had been on life-support for two weeks after the crash when his family made the decision to have him removed from the ventilator that was keeping him alive. He died May 19, 2009.

Robert Edwards testified that, as he approached the intersection, he saw a beige vehicle with heavy front end damage driving straight for him in the wrong lane. When the car moved into its proper lane, he proceeded forward and stopped a few car lengths behind a pickup truck. The driver of the truck was on a cellphone summoning an ambulance. A woman lay on the asphalt.

Edwards said he looked into the water-filled ditch at the side of the road and saw a man in a leather jacket floating face down.

A police collision expert testified there were no skid marks indicating either vehicle had braked or tried to avoid the crash.

Kevin Armstrong, the now-retired OPP officer who investigated the crash, testified Sharpe’s Chrysler Intrepid accelerated through a ditch after hitting the motorcycle. The Intrepid left its front bumper and headlight in the ditch and leaked a trail of fluid from the engine compartment that made it easy to trace its path.

Armstrong said there was no evidence to suggest what speed either vehicle was travelling, but figures from the distance Gregory Hardy’s body flew, the bike was likely going the 80 km/h limit posted on County Road 46.

Armstrong said Sharpe’s Intrepid had been travelling south on Rochester Townline. There was a stop sign facing her at the intersection.

Upon impact, the motorcycle became “physically engaged” with the front of the Intrepid, getting pushed along the asphalt before breaking free and scraping along the side of the Intrepid, Armstrong said.

Armstrong was the only police witness called by the Crown. Court did not hear from the officer who arrested her.

Sharpe was originally charged with careless driving and failing to remain at the scene of a crash.

Colleen Eve tearfully recalled the mother she barely knew.
She was only three back in 2000 when her father John told her mother, Chatham-Kent OPP Sgt Marg Eve would not be coming home. Eve was critically injured when a truck smashed into three cruisers parked by the side of the road after stopping a suspect vehicle.